Here is a small testcase that uses java.util.zip.Deflater


//****************************************************
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.zip.Deflater; 

public class TestDeflater {

      public static void main(String[] args) {

            int max_byte_length = 200000000;
            byte[] inputData = new byte[max_byte_length];
            Random random = new Random();
            random.nextBytes(inputData);

            System.out.println("dataSize:" + inputData.length);

            Deflater compressor = new Deflater(Deflater.BEST_COMPRESSION);
            compressor.setInput(inputData);
            compressor.finish();

      
            byte[] tempBuf = new byte[inputData.length];
            int compressedLength = compressor.deflate(tempBuf);

            System.out.println("compressedSize:" + compressedLength);
            System.out.println("finishedFlag:"+compressor.finished());

            compressor.end();
      }
}
//****************************************************


This is how it works normally:

$ java TestDeflater     
dataSize:200000000
compressedSize:200000000
finishedFlag:false


However, if either virtual memory (swap space) is scarce or the Java
process is about to hit the (4GB on Solaris32 / 2GB on Windows/Linux) 
process size limit, then we will see this:

$ ulimit -d 100000  //simulating low memory condition
$ java TestDeflater
dataSize:200000000
compressedSize:0    <<<<< 
finishedFlag:false

The expected behaviour should be to throw an OOME instead.